Page 4 of Unbar the Barred
“Cranny is losing his shit out here… holy fuck boss, it smells like an omega brothel in here.” Kendrick glanced down thepassageway and back to Trey, frowning. “Somethin’ ain’t right with this picture!”
“Button it,” Trey snapped, not in the mood to go a round with Kendrick right then.
Kendrick shrugged massive shoulders, the light of interest not waning. “Whatever. But now you got your head out of your pants, I need you to have a fucking word with Cranny.” Kendrick, a huge bear shifter who had worked for Trey since he had opened the bar twenty years ago, was the only one who got away with speaking to Trey this way.
They’d been friends for too long to do bullshit.
“What’s he losing his shit about now?” The lion shifter who worked at Darling Ranch, the biggest one in these parts, could be tricky to reason with when he’d had too much liquor. “Is Ethan in?” Ethan managed the ranch and was very capable of dealing with his ranch hands.
“Nope, he left earlier.” Kendrick ran a hand through his gray, cropped hair, a sign of his frustration, which made Trey feel bad for leaving him to deal with shit he shouldn’t have to. “Zippy said some shit about lions being lazy and—”
“And because Zippy is all about getting a rise from Cranny, they decided they’d do it in my bar like fucking usual.” Trey, too impatient to use the hand drier, shook them, then wiped the residual wetness off down his jeaned thighs, ignoring how sweaty he was and that there were cum stains on the back of the door. He would deal with it later, because Kendrick was right, it did smell like a brothel in there now.
He locked it from the outside so no one could go in, then his mind switched to Cranny, who occasionally broke more than a few chairs when he was pissed. With the band in tonight, Cranny would have no issue tossing folks out of their seats.
“You should just bar the pair of them,” Kendrick pointed out, following close behind Trey.
He glanced back and rolled his eyes. “I tried that, remember? Then Cranny gives you that whole fucking ‘I’ll change my tune’, only for Zippy to get in a snit over some shit and take it out on Cranny. Why they don’t just fuck each other and be done with it, I don’t fucking know.”
Kendrick coughed to disguise his laughter.
“Fuck you.”
“You’re just a big softie, admit it.” The bear’s grin was all fucking teeth.
He pointed at him. “You’re fired.”
“I heard that a thousand times before. Who else would put up with your shit?” There was a big enough pause for Trey to know what was coming. “Oh yeah, that would be Cass.”
Trey never replied, and he stomped into the busy bar, pushing up his sleeves, ready to use Cranny as an excuse to burn off the anger directed at himself for giving in to his needs. He’d deal with the ‘Cassidy issue’ later, when his mind wasn’t so full of how it had felt to hold the chick orhow right it was.
Chapter Three
Cassidy
Being inside his cabin gave Cassidy too much time to think about the night before, when he could smell Trey in his space. All because of the clothes he had tucked under his pillow—gross—because he couldn’t make himself launder them, along with everything else, that morning. He was an adult; he did not need to explain his behavior or justify it to anyone but himself.
But you are.
I’m an adult, he pointed out to his animal side, because it was all Cassidy had right then.
Then act like it and go tell the hunky wolf what we want.
No.
Everything got mixed up and he suspected it was because of his heat.
It isn’t.
Shut up.
He should have waited for today to visit Trey, then he wouldn’t be feeling like this.
Unnerved?
Was that the best way to describe it? It was as if he was waiting for the other cowboy boot to drop. Never a good thing, in Cassidy’s opinion. He wanted to believe he had pushed Trey to act differently because of his heat—or the lingering effects—which could more than account for the intimate touching and kissing. Yes, Trey touched him intimately and kissed him, but not like he’d done last night.
Was that the residual heat effect on Trey?
